The Lost Garden (The Purchas Family Series Book 5)

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  Back to Norfolk? Would the Duchess, who was always kind, let her go and live a hermit’s life at Cley? She would like that, she thought, with a great wave of longing for the sea’s voice and the wide green quiet of the marsh. But if she went there, she closed Cley’s doors to Blakeney. She knew, had already faced it, that she and Blakeney must not meet again. When we are old, she thought, we can be brother and sister, but now, there is nothing. Would he write and tell her so? She thought he very likely would. We are so alike, she thought. It’s no wonder if we love each other.

  She must not think about Blakeney. There was something else, almost as painful, to be faced. Mrs Winterton. Her mother. If she had not been ill just now, would she have turned to her for help? Of course not. Suddenly she was a child again, moping in the garden at Llanfryn, longing for the beautiful lady who never came back. Had her mopes turned Mrs Trentham against her, she wondered now? Had it all helped to make her ill? Did Frances Winterton cause trouble wherever she went? Or do I? I will not be like her. And then, wryly realistic, thought there was not much danger of that. She was neither beautiful nor charming like her mother. Naturally, she had disappointed the Duke. Her father. And, disappointing him, had disappointed her mother too. Did Frances Winterton care for her only as a pawn in the strange game she played with the Duke and Duchess?

  Thinking this, she felt sick. I must get away. Miss Skinner? Darling Skinny. But she was fully occupied with her brother and his motherless baby in the small house in Cambridge. I will not be selfish like my mother. So what shall I do?

  Blakeney’s note came that afternoon. It said almost exactly what Caroline had expected. She might have written it herself. Would she allow herself to answer it? He would like to have one line of her writing. She knew this. But it must be positive. She must have some plan, something to tell him, something to make his burden less.

  Tench scratched at the door later in the afternoon. ‘Miss Caroline, Mr Tremadoc has called again. He begs you to see him for a moment.’

  Tremadoc? A million years ago, yesterday, he had asked her to marry him. Well?

  ‘I’ll see him, Tench. Ask him to be so good as to wait a few minutes, then come and help me make myself fit to be seen.’

  Geraint Tremadoc had never been crossed in his life, except by his mother. Caroline’s refusal, the day before, had begun by making him furious. He had driven home from Richmond Park vowing to think of her no more, and rather intending to take to his bed for a few days and make an interesting recovery. He might even tell his mother about his rash proposal and bask in her relief at the escape he had had. But when he got back to the big house in Grosvenor Square he found only a note from his mother. Her one brother, a rich mill owner in Manchester, had been taken ill and sent for her. She did not know how long she would be away. She had, of course, given every order for his comfort.

  But the house seemed very large and lonely without her bustling presence. He changed his mind about going to bed, went out to his club instead, heard the rumours about Lady Charlotte and enjoyed contributing his own bit of information to them. Yes (he was delighted to find himself the centre of an interested circle of listeners), Lord Ffether had been very angry indeed. No, neither of them had gone to the Star and Garter.

  ‘So you don’t know the end of the story,’ said a young man whose name Tremadoc did not know. ‘She wasn’t there, of course. Gone to Gretna.’

  ‘To Gretna?’ Tremadoc could not believe his ears.

  ‘Started for Gretna,’ corrected a very young man in a yellow-striped waistcoat.

  ‘With her half-brother!’

  ‘Gaston Fouquet,’ said striped waistcoat. ‘Never did like him. Dashed unpleasant way of looking at one.’

  ‘At least he didn’t call Blakeney out,’ chimed in yet another voice.

  ‘Call Blakeney out?’ Tremadoc managed at last to learn the main lines of the story. The truth about Gaston and Caroline’s birth had been a well-kept secret of the Duke’s generation and one of which his mother had not been cognisant, since her connection with trade had barred her from the inner circles of society.

  He went home at last, his head buzzing with information. Caroline was the Duke’s daughter. More important, in some ways, was the fact that she was Blakeney’s half-sister. So much for the calf’s eyes she and Blakeney had been casting at each other. They would be a sad pair now.

  So his chance? His Amoretta was a romantic figure again, a Duke’s daughter, and in despair. It must be deuced awkward for them at Chevenham House. Should he go to the Duke? He imagined himself welcomed with open arms, the solution to one of their problems. His mother would be angry. His mother should not have abandoned him at no notice to go to his Uncle Tom. He felt very free, very independent. Caroline would look up at him adoringly, as she had yesterday at Blakeney. She had always been his best audience. He would write her an epic.

  He put on his best waistcoat, the one with huge brass buttons, took particular care in choosing a gold-headed cane, and strolled down Audley Street to Chevenham House. The Duke was out. The Duchess then? The Duchess was with Mrs Winterton, who was ill, and was seeing no one. He had the bit well between his teeth now, and asked for Miss Thorpe. Much more romantic, much more the act of a poet to propose at once, and let the old people go hang.

  Caroline kept him waiting, which was unlike her, but he made allowances for her. She had had a bad shaking the day before; he must remember to enquire about her injuries. He remembered his own and sat down on a straight-backed, gilded chair. Chevenham House seemed oddly quiet this morning. He wondered, casually, if Mrs Winterton was really ill. But that was no affair of his.

  When Caroline appeared at last, he was shocked at her appearance. This was not his Amoretta but a pale, quiet girl with dark smudges under her eyes. Really, she was almost plain. Perhaps he would merely enquire after her health and beat a quick retreat.

  ‘It’s good of you to come.’ She raised dark-circled eyes to his, and smiled a little, tremulously.

  ‘Of course I came.’ He had forgotten how small she was. The muslin sleeve of her morning dress revealed a purple bruise on her white arm. ‘I frightened you yesterday,’ he said. ‘I came to say how very sorry I am. I am afraid you are hurt!’

  ‘It’s nothing.’ She put a defensive hand on the bruise. ‘I was so sorry about your fall. I do hope you are none the worse.’

  ‘Not the least in the world,’ he said. ‘We men are used to getting in and out of scrapes, you know. I was out at the club last night,’ he told her, very much the man of the world. ‘I heard something I did not much like about Lady Charlotte. Lucky it was no worse, I suppose.’ Suddenly he saw his way clear. She had blushed scarlet when he spoke of Lady Charlotte; her eyes sparkled with unshed tears; she was his Amoretta again. ‘This is no place for you now,’ he told her. ‘I am come to offer you my heart, my home, my hand!’

  ‘Oh, Mr Tremadoc.’ A tear detached itself from the corner of her left eye and rolled slowly down her cheek.

  ‘Call me Geraint,’ he said. ‘Call me husband! Amoretta, be my muse, be my inspiration, be my dear. Come to me, sweet one, and I will look after you always.’

  ‘You’re…you’re very good!’ She was twisting a damp handkerchief between her fingers. ‘I…I would dearly like to get away from here. But, Mr Tremadoc,’ she looked up and met his eyes through her tears: ‘I must tell you. I do not love you. I love another.’

  ‘I know all about that.’ He surprised her. ‘Quite impossible, you know, even if you hadn’t been…’ He stopped, colouring. ‘Related. The Duke would never have allowed it.’

  ‘And your mother?’ she asked.

  ‘Has no say in the matter. I’m my own master. Have been since I was eighteen. Besides, she’s away. Went off in a cloud of dust yesterday to look after that mill-owning uncle of mine.’ He laughed what he meant for a wordly laugh. ‘Shall we give them a look in on our way to Gretna, Amoretta?’

  ‘Gretna?’

  ‘Where else?’ The idea must
have been at the back of his mind ever since he had heard of Lady Charlotte’s attempted elopement. It would be the most romantic thing. Poet elopes with Duke’s daughter. They would be in all the gossip columns, thinly disguised under initials. Gallant Mr T and the daughter of the Duke of C. A rhyme flirted at the corner of his mind. No time for that now. ‘Things are all to pieces here,’ he told her. ‘The Duke seems to have gone away. Mrs Winterton is ill, and the Duchess is seeing no one. It is no time to be talking to them of marrying and giving in marriage. You will see; they will be only too grateful to have you arrange your own destiny. Let me arrange it! Oh, my little love, I will cherish you, care for you like a queen as we drive to Scotland. I will put you on a pedestal, my goddess, and write you a sonnet a day.’

  ‘It sounds very uncomfortable.’ For a moment, her sense of the ridiculous got the better of her, but she caught his look of chagrin and hurried on. ‘You are goodness itself! Would you let me bring Tench, my maid? I think she would come if I asked her.’

  ‘Of course you must bring her,’ he said with some relief. It had been beginning to strike him that the servants at Grosvenor Square were very much more his mother’s than his. ‘That will make everything right. Your maid and my man Jenkins. It will be quite a little holiday for you. Honeymoon!’ he amended swiftly. ‘Only, of course, until we reach Gretna, you will be a sister to me. What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing.’ The thought of Blakeney, her brother, had been almost too much for her. But in a way that settled it. She could not stay here. Where else could she go? ‘You really think Gretna would be best?’ she asked, and realised, as she said it, that she had already, somehow, tacitly agreed to marry him.

  ‘I am sure of it! I shall call for you tomorrow, heart of my heart. There are arrangements I must make today. I shall come in the morning, seemingly to take you for a drive in the park. You will send your maid to my house with your bandboxes. You will have to think of some reason. A dress back to the dressmaker, perhaps? Then we will pick her up there and set out post haste for the border. Oh my love, I cannot wait to call you mine.’

  He was going to kiss her. Her cheeks burned, remembering Blakeney yesterday, that passionate communion. But this was so different that she almost found she did not mind it.

  After he left, her heart failed her. Mad to have tacitly agreed to go. She would write and tell him so. She thought, in her heart, that he would be relieved. Even if he really loved her, he must on thinking it over feel as appalled as she did now at the idea of a trip to Gretna. His mother would be furious. It was no way to begin a marriage. She sat down to write to him, but was interrupted by Charlotte.

  ‘Well, sister dear,’ said she. ‘How does it feel to wake up and find yourself a Duke’s daughter? Are you expecting a throng of suitors now the glorious truth is out? I doubt you’ll be disappointed. Oh, father will provide for you, I suppose. He must always have meant to do so, but I think you may find the gallants less than pressing.’ She laughed. ‘Imagine having darling Frances for a mother-in-law. Mind you, it’s an idea. Marry at once, there’s a kind sister, and take your dear mamma to live with you. Then we can all breathe again here.’ She took a quick angry turn across the room. ‘It makes me mad as fire to see my mother hanging over that woman’s sickbed.’

  ‘She is my mother,’ said Caroline. ‘Dear Charlotte, please…’

  ‘Don’t “Dear Charlotte” me! You can’t come round me with your quiet little pleading ways, so like your mother’s, and so I tell you! We don’t want you here! A daily reminder of all that’s wrong with our lives! About father…Oh, I wish I was dead!’ She sank on to a chair and burst into tears.

  ‘Charlotte, I am so very sorry.’ Caroline crossed the room to put a timid hand on her shoulder. ‘Have you heard anything from Gaston?’

  ‘From my dear brother? No. Nor do I expect to. But he’ll be all right,’ said Charlotte with one of her fits of clear sight. ‘Father will forgive him in no time. Father dotes on him. It’s your darling Blakeney who is going to be in trouble. I don’t know what he said to Papa last night, but I don’t think the Duke is going to forget it in a hurry. He doesn’t like either of you above half this morning, and I do think, Caroline, that the sooner you get away from here, for Blakeney’s sake as well as everyone else’s, the better. Surely you must have some friends of your own? What happened to those people down in the West? The ones with the garden you were always mooning over?’

  ‘Mr Trentham is dead,’ said Caroline sadly. ‘Sophie wrote to me the other day. She’s married; she doesn’t want me. You know the Duke didn’t want me to keep in touch with them.’ My father, she thought.

  ‘Oh, the Duke! I could kill him, though he is my father — and yours! We’re all off to Bath in the morning, did you know? For darling Frances’ sake, and to hide my disgrace. My disgrace! Father’s disgrace! And yours too, come to that,’ she ended, rounding on Caroline. ‘Don’t think Amelia and I are going to be sisters to you, because we have talked it over, and we won’t. So think that over, Miss Bastard Thorpe.’

  Caroline fled for the refuge of her room. She found Tench there, angrily mending a torn flounce and, visibly, waiting for her.

  ‘Mrs Winterton is worse again.’ If Tench saw Caroline’s distress she thought it best to pretend not to. ‘But his Grace is positive for Bath tomorrow. I think they’ll go it if kills her. He’s sent his Lordship on ahead. Like a courier. They had words last night, I understand. The Duke don’t seem to know what to do with you, Miss Caroline.’

  ‘He’d brick me up in a convent cell if he could,’ said Caroline.

  ‘I really believe he would, miss. You’re not to go to Bath, that’s for sure. The Duchess thinks you should go to her mamma in Derbyshire. I do hope they don’t send you there, miss. Of all the dead and alive holes! And the old lady deaf as a post and pious as St Peter.’

  ‘But she won’t want me,’ wailed Caroline, a whole host of now-understood memories flocking into her mind. The Duchess’ formidable mother had been a rare visitor at Cley and had never made any secret of her dislike for Mrs Winterton, Gaston and Caroline. And, more significant still, on the rare occasions when the Duke and Duchess visited her in Derbyshire, Mrs Winterton always had another engagement. ‘She will refuse to have me,’ said Caroline. ‘Tench!’ Suddenly, her mind was made up. ‘Can you keep a secret?’

  ‘For you, miss? Anything.’

  ‘Mr Tremadoc has asked me to marry him. We’re going to Gretna Green. Tomorrow. And you’re coming too, dear Tench, if you will.’ And as she said it, knew a moment of prophetic despair.

  Chapter Ten

  Geraint Tremadoc suffered from travel sickness. His mother, he explained to Caroline, had always seen to the details of their journeys. Now Caroline would have to. He accepted her smelling salts gratefully, having forgotten his own, and left her and his man Jenkins to decide where they would change horses.

  Jenkins showed signs of sauciness at first, but Caroline had not lived at Cley for nothing, and the man soon changed his tune.

  ‘She’s going to be the missus, all right,’ he told the coachman, when they stopped for the first night. ‘And how she and the old missus will get on, only God knows.’

  ‘I reckon you and I have a pretty fair idea,’ said the coachman. ‘But what I say is, this un’s a lady, and young. My money’s on her.’

  ‘And mine,’ agreed Jenkins. ‘And I don’t mind that maid of hers either. She’s a high-flyer and no mistake.’

  From then on Caroline found at least the mechanical details of the journey easy enough. But the prospect before her was increasingly appalling. She had been mad…mad…mad. Sitting, silent, hour after hour as the carriage jolted over the Great North Road and Tremadoc shivered and grumbled in his corner, she longed more and more desperately for rescue.

  Rescue? Yes, Blakeney. Blakeney acting the part of a brother. Stopping the carriage; telling her not to be a fool; promising to take care of her. She had told him, in the note she had written the mornin
g she left, exactly what their plans were. As she herself became day by day more aware of the madness of what she had done, she was convinced that, as always, he would see things as she did, would come to her rescue. After all, thanks to Tremadoc’s travel sickness, they were travelling slowly enough.

  It gave her all too much time to get to know the man she had agreed to marry, and the more she saw of him, the more she longed for Blakeney, and rescue. In the carriage, he lay with his head against the squabs and groaned if she spoke to him. And when she tried to engage him in conversation over meals in the inns where they spent the night, she found they had nothing to talk about. Brought up at home under the doting eye of his mother, he seemed to have read nothing but poetry, and that without the slightest discrimination. Politics bored him, and when he found her anxiously scanning the papers in the coffee room of an inn he spoke to her sharply.

  ‘But I wanted to see if it is true that Mr Pitt is to form a government,’ she explained. ‘The Duchess thought he was bound to be asked, now that Mr Addington’s majority is down to twenty-one.’

  ‘Whig, Tory!’ He said impatiently. ‘What difference does it make? My mother would be shocked to see you in the coffee room of a public inn.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ It was not the moment to tell him that Pitt and Addington were both Tories. And she was getting unhappily used to his habit of referring to his mother as if she were a kind of arbiter of fate. She would have been desperate by now, if she had not been so sure of Blakeney.

  But Blakeney had not received her note. After much anguished thought, she had written also to the Duchess, a note to be delivered after she and Tremadoc were safe on their way. The Duchess, distracted with worry about Frances Winterton, had read this note quickly and handed it to the Duke.